Enthralled
by Jesiryu
Summary: Set during the first chapter of Club Dead, Bill reflects on his lot in life. His Maker is Calling and he only has time for one last conversation with Sookie before he can no longer resist Lorena.


Author's Note : This is a one shot inspired by some of the debate between the ladies of Team Eric and Team Bill on the True Blood wiki. There's a lot to be desired from both vampires, but I think Bill does tend to get the short end of the stick most of the time. I refuse to make excuses for him and I do think it is a very personal choice on whether or not you can forgive him for what he does to Sookie. But at the same time Bill is such a complex character, and so at odds with his vampire nature, that you can't help but feel your heart go out to him (as Sookie has said herself). This is my take on Bill being called back to Lorena. I borrowed the dialogue directly from the first chapter of Club Dead except this time we see it through Bill's eyes instead of Sookie's. I hope you like it.

Charlaine Harris retains all rights and privledges to her characters and the SVM books, doubly so in the case of the borrowed dialogue.

As always, thanks for reading.

* * *

I could not help myself. I wanted to see her. I needed to see her. It had been so long.

80 years. That was how long we had been apart. She had sent me away from her, finally, when there was nothing between us but rage and frustration. I had been hers in every sense of the word. Her lover, her worshipper, her subject, her child. I hated her for making me what I am. I loved her for being what she is. Temptation. Horror. Woman. Vampire.

If there had ever been a way to describe Lorena I had found it once in a book. It was written by a mortal of course, who had never seen true magic or true darkness. His writing had been themed on the industrial revolution and its potentially destructive impact on the earth and human society, though he wrote solely of a world of fantasy. But one of his characters has a vision of herself as a dark power when tempted with the One Ring and the imagery had immediately made me think of my Maker. How had it gone? _...as beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth. All shall love me and despair!_

Lorena.

I didn't even take the time to think "why now?" or wonder what she wanted. I just needed to see her. It was wrong of me but the Queen would understand, certainly, that you cannot ignore the call of your Maker. She should not have chosen me for this project anyway.

Not the database, no, I was thoroughly enjoying my little pet project. But Sookie…

I had not wanted to take up with her in the first place. She was human and what human woman can compare to a vampire? To Lorena? Yet Sookie filled a void in me that I almost had not known was there. I wanted to be able to live among humans, to avoid the senseless violence and silly little games that went along with vampire nests. After years of futile attempts and frustrating failures, as well as some lapses into my own inner darkness, it had finally seemed possible.

The Call was becoming more urgent and it was only my strength of will that kept me from running off the first time I heard it. I needed to see to some things first. I had a couple more entries to make in my database, and of course to tell Sookie that I would be gone for a while. I had hoped…I wouldn't think about that now.

Lorena was Calling. I just needed one more night. Then I could go.

I was at my computer when Sookie came over from work but I could hardly be troubled to look up. "Hello, sweetheart," came the words automatically. I wonder if Sookie understood the irony of that particular term of endearment.

She kissed my neck then licked my ear but all I could think of were my Maker's lips, my Maker's tongue and it sent a wave of disgust through me. I needed to finish this entry.

"Be with you in a minute," I said. Then I noticed her looking at the screen. I had scanned in an old photograph of a vampire that had been born in Sicily in the 1750's and Sookie was clearly reading the text I had added alongside it. This was not something she should see so as I twisted around I clicked the keys that would shut off the screen.

"Sookie," I said, wondering how much I would have to tell her to put an end to her curiosity.

"Bill." Her voice was cold but it didn't bother me. She shouldn't have been reading over my shoulder in the first place and had no right to be upset that I had stopped her.

"You didn't see what you just saw," I said steadily, not blinking.

Sookie was not happy, which tended to make her sarcastic. "Uh-huh. What are you up to?"

Better to nip this in the bud. "I have a secret assignment. Eric must not know. None of the area vampires can know."

She looked vaguely disappointed. "So – if you're not doing a job for Eric, who are you working for?"

"The queen of Louisiana," I said in a voice that would register to her as just louder than a whisper.

Sookie actually started laughing. "You're serious?"

"I am as serious as the grave." If there was an edge of steel in my voice it was because she was being ridiculous again.

Thankfully she seemed to pick up on my tone and made an effort to stop giggling. "Okay, let me get this straight. You work for Eric, who is the boss of Area 5, but there is also a queen? Of Louisiana?"

I nodded.

"So, the state is divided up into Areas? And she's Eric's superior, since he runs a business in Shreveport, which is in Area 5."

Leave it to Sookie to speak aloud as she puzzled out the vampire hierarchy of Louisiana. I nodded again.

She put a hand over her face. "So where does she live? Baton Rouge?"

"No, no," I said quickly, "New Orleans, of course."

She was silent a moment as her thoughts oriented themselves. "So, the Louisiana queen of the vampires has you working on a secret project. And this is why you have lived at your computer every waking out the past few weeks."

"Yes." I picked up the bottle of TruBlood that I had been drinking from only to find it empty, so I got up to get another one from the kitchen. After it had heated sufficiently in the microwave (humans do occasionally invent very useful things) I returned to the room where Sookie was still waiting.

"So how much more time do you have to spend on this project?" she asked, not quite able to hide her emotions.

"As long as it takes," I said with some annoyance. She would never understand the vampire existence, never understand that I was at such a disadvantage because of my age and lack of a nest. I had chosen to live without a nest, yes, but there was nothing I could do about my age. And that meant I had to do things for my elders often when I did not even like them. But this database project had been interesting and I _was_ enjoying it. Nothing Sookie could say or do would make me want to stop working on it even if I had that option.

"Well, if you're so absorbed in your project, I'll just stay away until it's over," she said slowly.

I hesitated. Certainly she didn't actually want to stay away, but since she had offered I decided acceptance would be the easiest way to end the conversation. "That might be best."

She was pulling on her coat and heading to the door in a flash, for a human, and I found myself wanting to at least make an attempt to ease some of the pain that was sure to come. "I have to tell you something."

Sookie didn't turn around but she did stop moving, which I took to be the only encouragement I would receive to continue. "If anything happens to me, you must look in the hiding place I built at your house. My computer should be in it, and some disks. Don't tell anyone." I wondered if I would have time to store the computer there before I left, if I would truly be able to resist the Call for another night. "If the computer isn't in the hiding place, come over to my house and see if it's here. Come in the daytime and come armed. Get the computer and any disks you can find, and hide them in my hidey-hole as you call it."

She nodded, barely acknowledging me but at least she was listening. "If I'm not back, or if you don't get word from me in say…eight weeks," I calculated in my head the various scenarios that could play out and decided that the due-date of my project would be a good time mark, "Yes eight weeks, then tell Eric everything I said to you today. And place yourself under his protection."

Again she nodded, and I was not certain but she might have been crying. "I am going to…Seattle soon," I said, admitting to myself that I was going to see Lorena. "When I come back, we'll talk." I wished things could have been different, I had hoped they would be different after I came to know Sookie. She was frustrating and stubborn, infuriatingly so at times, but she loved me. I had shown her the world of vampires, my world, but not as it truly was. I showed her an image like one would see a reflection of the true world on the surface of a pool of water. Hazy, mysterious, and just out of reach. But while she was safe on the shore, I was drowning.

And Lorena was Calling.

Sookie walked out the door without speaking. I knew she was upset and I felt vaguely guilty that it was my fault. But she could not understand. And if she ever did understand, she would probably run in terror from what I showed her.

_I am sorry, _I thought to her, but the words would never leave my lips. There was no point in being sorry for what you could not change.

So I let the sunlight leave and turned my face away from it, not knowing if I would ever have the chance to look upon such a vision ever again. It had been glorious, but it had always been fleeting.

My Dark Goddess was waiting.

* * *

Added note: The bit at the beginning that Bill quotes from a book (written in italics) are the words of JRR Tolkien taken from 'The Lord of the Rings' - they were said by Galadriel when Frodo offers her the One Ring during the Fellowship's stay in Lothlorien.


End file.
